


colour your cartography in your dreams of me

by firelordazulas



Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: F/F, Soulmates AU, ive literally been planning a soulmarks au 4 a year now im so sorry 2 all 3 people in this fandom, solumarks colour au, the soulmates au ive been writing 4 literally a billion years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelordazulas/pseuds/firelordazulas
Summary: Jeanine brushes her fingers over a flying bird and both of you watch the colours bloom across your skin. Jeanine’s hands are mostly unmarked - your black sinks deep into her fingertips. She slowly rubs them together, as if testing the consistency of ink, murmurs, “Interesting,” and looks at you. It is a gaze that’s full, but you don’t know what of - you think she doesn’t either.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Madame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madame/gifts).



> title from purity ring - cartographist btw here's a tris/jeanine mix i basically made 2 listen 2 while writing this like a year ago http://8tracks.com/queerjadis/your-pure-heart-your-white-light also here it is on spotify https://open.spotify.com/user/215hgaaiqxmjkav2632bqarfy/playlist/7rTmVxJWodg8Y5mbrPfeDj 
> 
> i also highly recommend you listen to washington - saint lo while reading this bc it's what led 2 this fic finally actually happening

They whisper behind you back about your lack of marks. They wonder and quibble and you can tell they don’t think you belong - but that’s fine, because you don’t think you do either.

You leave a pretty average strength black mark on the factionless you’ve donated food to. They leave no mark on you. This is how it always is; you teach people’s lives; show them a small kindness that leaves a mark. You remain a pool of still water. Unblemished. The rest of your faction wear their marks with a kind of quiet satisfaction - it isn’t, couldn’t be pride, but it is the warmth of a job well done, of a life well lived. 

You stick out in Abnegation, you and your only 3 marks. You brother and your parents. You try to say that you didn’t ask for this - everyday you hope that someone will leave their mark on you, but instead you leave your black spots and receive nothing in return. Just as you always have.

 

Tori leaves her mark on your arm. You stare at it and her in wonder, slowly trace the dark green that is both soothing and knowing, ecstatic to have someone else’s mark upon your skin finally. Her hands are already a sea of marks, but your black absorbs their light. It’s a threatening image. You wonder what you will do to her. You wonder what she will do to you. 

 

Cristina is a cool blue upon your hand, pale in colour; almost white. She straight out asks you how many marks you have - those Candor instincts that will never quite be beaten out of her.

“You’re my fifth.” You flex your palm in quiet wonder. “You?”

“Fifteenth. You must not touch people very often.”

“Yeah… Something like that.”

 

Will leaves a dark impression on you, but you leave an even darker mark on him. Later, you wonder if soulmate marks can predict who kills you. 

You tell yourself that’s why you and Jeanine have matching marks - that the two of you are destined to kill each other.

 

Four leaves a soft burgundy that fills you with the comfort of somewhere safe. You think of him as a shelter, of somewhere you can go to escape. He’s a safe harbour in this nest of vipers. 

 

Jeanine brushes her fingers over a flying bird and both of you watch the colours bloom across your skin. Jeanine’s hands are mostly unmarked - your black sinks deep into her fingertips. She slowly rubs them together, as if testing the consistency of ink, murmurs, “Interesting,” and looks at you. It is a gaze that’s full, but you don’t know what of - you think she doesn’t either. 

Jeanine’s crisp and deep blue becomes a dusky sky that the swallows glide across. It’s not a night sky, nor is it day - she leaves behind an unfathomable twilight. You think your skin there feels hot to the touch.

When you go to sleep that night, it’s with two fingers pressed perfectly into her imprint. 

 

She barks your name from the balcony. You immediately disengage from the two men you’d been beating to a pulp and follow her as she leads you away.

Her office is all muted colours and glass, much like the rest of Erudite. You wonder how she deals with being on show constantly, someone who’s so private forced to share her work with an entire faction. There are no personal effects on her desk. Somehow, you don’t believe this her actual office; this is just the public facade. She doesn’t spend more time than she has to here. Instead, you think of a softly lit room with wood furnishings and plush seats, a library with the walls entirely lined with shelves upon shelves of books. Later, you will learn that somehow this vision was accurate down to the soft red of the chair cushions.

The conversation is a threat; you realise that almost from the first artificial smile. You don’t know quite what she’s threatening, however; you know she wants, needs, your compliance. You know there will be an event in the future where she will demand something from you, something that you cannot afford to give. 

She comes back to Dauntless in the car with you and it is not what you expect. Away from the eyes of her public, she lends you books. She makes an effort to teach you. She sits close to you and her perfume fills the leather seats as she makes an offer; a second chance; a move to Erudite. A couple of weeks, hell, only a few hours ago, you think you would have jumped at the chance - the offer is tempting. But you know Jeanine would find out, that she would somehow know about your difference. In fact, she probably already does, but in Erudite there would be no one to protect you and no one to miss you.

 

Jeanine offers to walk you to your dormitory. The two of you are silent as you walk through the halls, the books she leant you heavy in your arms. When Al and the other Dauntless attack you, this time she is the one who saves you; it is her who shouts for help, who manages to ineffectually pull at their arms long enough for you to fight your way to safety. You pull her after you; the two of you run down the halls with your hands clasped between you, Jeanine struggling in her heels and tight dress.

Eventually, you slow to a walk. Jeanine is visibly out of breath and her hair is in a disarray. Your shirt is ripped, your face and hands bloody, but you check her over for injuries first. There’s some scuffs on her hands from where she’d been pushed into a wall; you’re sure she’ll have a sizeable egg on the back of her skull in the morning, but otherwise she’s fine.

You’re mostly just surprised she didn’t twist an ankle in those heels. “You should wear more practical shoes.”

“Well, usually I’m not expecting a literal attack. Who were those boys? Why were they trying to murder you?”

“They’re scared of being factionless. In Dauntless, if you don’t pass a certain line, you get cut. They’re at the bottom of the list. But Al… I thought he was my friend.” You shook your head . “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Let’s get you back to your car.”

The two of you walk on in silence. You’re almost back to the entrance when you realise that in the scuffle you’d lost the books Jeanine had leant you. 

“Oh, shit. Jeanine, I dropped those books you gave me - I’ll go find them -”

You turn to go but Jeanine grabs your arm before you can make more than a single step. “Don’t you dare.” Her voice is a low growl. You don’t think she sounds scared, for you or for herself, just deeply protective. “You’re coming back to Erudite with me, where you can try and convince me that I should let you go back these - these - barbarians.”

“Wait - I’ve seen you coming and going from Dauntless mysteriously. You’re clearly using these ‘barbarians’ for something.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, brute force is often useful, but it isn’t something you should live with. It isn’t something you in particular have to live with.”

“Jeanine… I can’t go with you until you promise I can go back. I understand that you need me to go tonight, but I have to be back in the morning.”

She just looked at you for a few seconds, before throwing her hands up in defeat. “Fine. Fine! But if any of them so much as lay another finger on you -”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure they’ll all find a lady in a dress and heels very threatening.”

 

The two of you don’t stop touching for the entire car ride. It’s only a small thing; just the length of your pinkies, hands casually next to each other on the middle, empty car seat. Your entire body tingles.

 

She hands you a soft, Erudite blue jumper to wear over your ripped shirt. It’s too big and keeps falling off one shoulder. It smells of her. 

She nods at the sofa and disappears for five minutes. When she comes back, her face is wiped clean of makeup, her dress replaced by a jumper and leggings, her hair up in a tiny pony-tail. Jeanine looks strangely small like this, wrapped up in a jumper in the cold and minimalist furnishings of her apartment; it doesn’t seem like she could be plotting to overthrow Abnegation rule at all.

“Do you want anything to eat, or do you just want to sleep?”

“I think I’d just like to go to sleep, if that’s alright?” Emotionally, you are bone-weary.

“Come, there’s a more comfortable couch in the library.”

It’s the room from your imaginings in her office, the softly lit library where she finally looks at home. You pretend you can see your shoulders relax and her step grow surer; here is where she knows, is where she feels comfortable. The public persona is shed; the warm light makes her features more gentle, her cold colours softening. 

The sofa is indeed very comfortable, a long three seater that’s squashy and lumpy in the right places. It feels well used; you can easily imagine Jeanine working into the night in here, falling asleep over her papers. The deep brown of the seats deflate satisfying as you sink down; it’s one of those sofas that practically engulfs you.

You don’t quite mean to, but you sigh satisfyingly and let the cushions swallow you. “It’s amazing. This whole library is.”

She looks almost sheepish in a way you didn’t expect, even though you’d definitely been able to sense her reticence in allowing you in here. “Yes, well, everyone needs a little bit of comfort.”

“Honestly, this sofa is probably comfier than my bunk.” Somehow, you end up with your legs tucked up under you, head buried in the corner of the headrest, eyes closed.

“There’s a blanket -” and she’d tutted and thrown the thing over you, pulling and shifting the cloth until only your eyes, half-mast, peek out. “There you go. Okay, the bathroom’s the door on the left out in the main room. I’ll leave you to sleep.”

As she turned to go, you reached out and grabbed her hand. You were already heavy with sleep. “Jeanine. Thank you.”

“It’s no problem.” and she’d smiled this small, secret little thing at the floor, face turned away from you. 

With a final squeeze of your hand, she left you.

 

The blanket still smelled of her when you woke. In your sleep, you’d pulled it up over your head and turned your whole body into the back of the couch, all of you curled up into a ball. It took a second for you to re-orientate yourself. As you threw the blanket off and unfolded yourself, you noticed the stiffness of your muscles and the stinging of the cuts and scrapes you hadn’t bothered to clean yesterday. You only hoped you hadn’t bled on Jeanine’s nice sofa.

She walks in while you’re scrubbing your hands over your face. You probably look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, but she’s already dressed and perfect with two cups of coffee. “Oh, I was just coming to wake you. Good timing. Here’s some coffee.” She blinked rapidly as she handed it over, obviously surprised. “I didn’t think to ask how you took it but it’s got cream and 2 sugars which just… Felt right, I suppose.”

You’d started reaching for the coffee almost as soon as she started walking into the room and you cradle it close to your face, breathing it in. “That’s exactly right, thank you. Well, usually I put as much sugar as possible in, but -”

“Yeah, there was no way I was letting you do that. Do you know how bad for you sugar is?”

You laughed into your mug, sighing over the first sip. “Wow, careful, you almost sound worried for my health.”

“Yes, well.” She cleared her throat, scuffed a heel on the thick thick carpet. “Anyway, I’m sorry to rush you, but I have to be getting to the office. I’ll walk you to my car on the way.”

“Oh, right, of course.” 

You found yourself curiously unwilling to leave. The problems of the world seemed remote from here. Even though you know that Jeanine is the centre of the storm, here in this soft library full of things that she obviously holds dear it doesn’t seem like the winds could possibly ever buffet you. It’s not that you don’t think Jeanine is capable of it; you know she is. But here it just doesn’t seem possible that she could want to shatter this peace. 

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Absentmindedly, she handed you her cup of coffee, her mind obviously already on the books she wanted to select. When her back was turned, you took a cautious sip, unable to deny your curiousity; black, of course.

Her treatment of the books is soft and reverent. You thought she would treat these casually, not without care but just as the receptacles of knowledge she can use. But as soon as the thought enters your head you know it’s wrong. Fiction is her private world. 

You slowly slip your coffee as she tilts her head this way and that, as she strokes the spines of books that must be hundreds of years old now. It takes about five minutes and you quietly let her take as long as she needs.

She hands you three books slowly, carefully; you take them with the veneration you know she needs to see. “Thank you, Jeanine.”

It’s odd. You have so much to say thank you for, but you know in this story the two of you are enemies; you know that she is the villain.

 

Peter leaps upon the opportunity to mock you as soon as he sees the book you hold. “Ooohhh, little stiff’s trying to educate herself, how cute!”

“Go away, Peter.”

“Books, huh? Little bit old-fashioned don’t you think? Where’d you even get them from anyway - oh, wait, of course, it must have been from your girlfriend, Jeanine Matthews. Do your parents know about that yet - I don’t think they’d exactly approve -”

You literally just turn and walk back out of the room. Your heart is pounding in your ears. What would your parents think of this, of the way your chest warms when you see her, of the way her mark stands proudly on your collarbone? Nothing good, that’s for certain.

 

Four still helps you with your fearscape. He becomes a dear friend to you, somehow, a rock you can rely on, but your head's too full of Jeanine, of the sight and smell and sound of her, of the lingering threat of her presence for you to notice that maybe you were supposed to fall in love with him.

 

“What’s with you and the scary Erudite leader anyway?” Cristina finally asks, a day later. You know the question has been brewing within her ever since that night, ever since that first meeting in the hall, really. It’s mostly just surprising it took her this long to ask; maybe you can teach an old Candor new tricks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, it’s me! I promise not to tell.” The conversation is light-hearted and juvenile, and you can’t but smile even as you bite your lip and try not to let her see.

“Okay, fine. She gives me books.”

“That’s it? That’s all you guys are doing?”

“Erm, yeah. Why, what else would we be doing?”

“Well, fucking for starters.”

Your cheeks go bright red and you stutter for a reasonable answer. “What - why would you even think that?”

“There’s this - charge, or something, whenever you two are in a room together. Like you’re two queens on a chessboard, either one of you about to make a move. But I can never tell if that moves gonna be to kiss each other or kill each other.”

 

Jeanine’s car picks you up every Tuesday and Thursday night. You read as much as you possibly can - you devour all the books she gives you and relish the opportunity to talk to her about them. The two of you always meet in her library, always late at night, and you always stay until the small hours of the morning. It’s exhausting but you don’t think you could ever give it up. You still don’t understand why she’s doing this; you’re constantly on edge, waiting for the trap to close, for the game to be up. 

 

You didn’t know Jeanine was going to be there. It’s the only thing you can think about as you climb onto the chair, as the serum enters your veins. Jeanine is here. She’s  _ here. _ You have trained enough to pass through your fears without concern, without a moment’s hitch, and you think it’s finally over when you stop drowning. Instead, the water rushes you to Jeanine’s library, deposits you on the couch you both love so much. She is there, dressed in the first outfit you ever saw her in. She takes a step closer to you, then another, and then another. She leans down, soothes her hand across your jaw, tugs at your bottom lip with her thumb and it’s more than you could ever hope for or dream of - and you know it isn’t real. You know this isn’t her. You wonder what it is you’re scared of; if the fear is her kissing you or something else. Are you scared of this moment passing without anything coming of it? Would the brave thing be to surge to your feet, to grab her and kiss her? 

Jeanine is pressing closer, her mouth coming closer to yours - until she skips past, mouth going to your ear instead. 

“I’m going to kill you.”

Just before the knife pierces your chest you push her away, but she keeps coming, and coming, and of course your fear is that she’s going to kill you, that she’s going to take a tender moment, a moment that you can feel yourself  _ ache  _ for, and use it to hurt you. You know what the brave thing to do is. With a twist of your arm, you take the knife and sink it into her chest, and as you do she shatters and so does the library and you’re taken away. You think you’re taken out of the simulation, but first you must kill your parents because Jeanine wants you to. It isn’t easy, it never will be, but as you gaze at the fake Jeanine you know it isn’t her. You still know this isn’t real.

 

You climb out the chair and you firmly do not look at Jeanine at all. You leave straight away, head down, ignoring the whispers. There are already rumours about you and Jeanine’s involvement (Peter has been calling her your girlfriend for weeks now) and this certainly isn’t going to help. 

 

That night is when everything goes to shit. You kind of wish you’d taken the opportunity to look Jeanine in the eyes one more time before she caused the death of your parents. 

 

This time, when Jeanine maliciously sticks a finger in your bullet hole, the two of you have had endless discussions and debates about fiction, about society, about politics - you’ve both groaned about the people in your life, you’ve both bitched and helped each other and you’d almost told her about being divergent - but you can see it now in her eyes that she knew all along. You’ve both existed quietly, breathing within the same space, a book and an end of the sofa each.

Of course she’d known - she’d probably it would come to something like this, too.

And she - Jeanine allows you to escape. You see her take your guards blasters - you see the look she gives, the one that somehow says she’s giving you a chance to run, a chance to live. 

You wonder, then, what the two of you might have been in another life. If you could have been friend, lovers; if you could have lived out a quiet eternity together.

 

You come back for Four, of course.

And she tries to kill you, of course, but your aim is strong and true, and while you cannot kill her, you sure can inject her with her own serum. You can almost do it without remorse. 

You stare at her hand, pinned against the screen, with your colour on the fingertips. Blood starts to trickle past the blade. Red and black - Dauntless colours. You smirk without humour. 

You save the day. You and Four get to run off into the sunset. It’s almost picturesque - but you feel her mark on your collarbone. You feel the threads she has left inside you; you feel the long nights spent together rotting away inside of you. 

 

In this universe, Jeanine does not have to wait for Peter to tell her your weaknesses; she already knows. The killings start earlier. You know what she wants. You know you have to go. 

 

“Remarkable.” You remember the way she used to say that in the gentle light of the library, over a novel or a bit of political theory or even, just the once, when she’d said it quietly while looking at you. “The chances of it being you, of all people. Nearly defies the laws of probability.” The bandage she wears on her hands is ostentatious and unnecessary - it’s clearly meant to needle you, to use the feelings she knows you have against you. 

“What’s remarkable is the amount of people you’ve managed to murder.” You know it’s fruitless - this sense of morality is what the two of you had always clashed over.

“Dark times call for extreme measures.” And she’s still fingering the bandage on her hand, as if you too had made the choice to do harm to a few to save the many. “You may find it hard to believe, but I am serving the greater good.”

You scoff, shake your head. It’s ridiculous or it should be; this is  _ Jeanine,  _ the woman you’d spent hours and hours with, who made your coffee just right and had tucked a blanket around you gently. The problem is that she genuinely believes she’s right. 

“Step up on the disc, please.” It’s clear that she wants the rest of this encounter to be all business; you immediately decide that’s the opposite of what’s going to happen. 

She doesn’t even look as you slam Peter’s head into the glass satisfying. It’s an obvious power move, but you know she also assumed you’d do what she told you, just as you always had. “Stop the suicides, or I swear I will shoot him.”

“Oh, that’s okay. You can kill him if you want; we have plenty of guards.” The sugary sweet tone of her voice sets your teeth on edge. It makes you stubborn. 

Your aim is perfect as you take shots at her and you revel in the discomfort on her face. She thought you were too enamored, too in love to even risk that the bullets might hit her. You think maybe this is the end of the two of you; that the suicides mean you can finally turn your back on her. 

And then you turn the gun on yourself. “I’m guessing you need me alive for this to work, right? RIGHT?” 

There’s a softening in Jeanine’s face. She slowly walks forward and you know that she knows you’ll do it. And you will. You would have. But she’s already a step ahead of you.

She uses Caleb to play you perfectly. You’d be mad but you don’t think you have the energy.

The suicides are incentive enough. She knows they are, as do you, and you know she’s just relieved that now, finally, the interaction between the two of you will stop being personal. Until she quietly wishes you good luck and it hurts more than you thought it would. You know she doesn’t want it to be you. You know she wants you to get through the sims without a problem; you know she believes you  _ can  _ get through the simulations, that you’re the only person who could. 

You step up to the plate.

 

The sims feel real, more real than you’re used to, and they drag up every awful thing in your life for Jeanine to see. What was once Four rescuing you is, instead, Jeanine entering the testing area and pulling you free. It’s her tenderly holding your jaw and telling you she’s giving you a chance to run, a chance to escape. You know it isn’t real; you know this box and the truth it holds means more to her than any personal relationship ever could. You know you’ve already forgiven her, even before the ordeal is over. Gently, you press your foreheads together and whisper, “It’s not real.”

She floats into dust. 

 

Jeanine is baiting you. It starts with some bitchy comment about your hair (“Is it meant to stick up like that?”) and ends with the death of you mother. Really, you don’t think you can be blamed for tackling her.

And then you’re falling, and Jeanine is screaming, not that you can know that. You can’t know how she runs to you; how she yells for you to be brought back. If you could, you’d like to think she calls for more than the experiment; that she mourns the loss of you too.

 

“I really thought you were the one.”

 

Jeanine is there when you crack open the box, in the room with you. She’s hovering, slightly unable to believe you’re alive, and this time you’re working together to decode the message, to complete the sim. Her hands keep going to touch you, as if to reassure herself you’re real, that you’re still breathing. 

It’s her face you watch as Edith Prior tells you what you think you knew all along. She mourns. Jeanine visibly mourns for her mistakes, for what she had given up, for future she thought she was protecting. You draw her into your arms, gently, as if she’ll break if you don’t handle her with care. 

That’s how Evelyn and her guards find the two of you; Jeanine with her face pressed tightly against your neck, not hugging you back, just staring at the wall with a furrow in her brow. She whispers, “I gave up everything. I gave up  _ you. _ ” 

And then the guards are there, pulling her away. You ignore Evelyn’s raised eyebrows; you ignore everything but that box, the one your mother had died for. The one Jeanine had placed all her hopes and dreams within, the one that now stops you from living the long, normal life you had still been 

 

You had only wanted to have a job, to have friends, to live a simple life as well as you could. Jeanine had been the start and the end of the obstacles being thrown in your way. She’d made herself essential to you, emotionally, and now that you’d defeated what was supposed to be the great villain of your story you were left aimless. 

The Council gives you a seat but no responsibilities. You’re supposed to represent the divergent in this new world order, but the truth is that everything has gone to shit. Amity go on farming like nothing has changed; they are the only ones. Abnegation lays in ruins and there is no one to pick them up, no one to do the self-sacrificing work that is their usual purview. Erudite cannot be trusted, so neither can their doctors, their science. Candor have almost 50 trials a day. They only thing this city has is soldiers; both the factionless and Dauntless are organised and ready, but what is there to protect the city from? The only threat came from within the gates, and then they were useless. Evelyn takes a seat on the Council also. She doesn’t claim to be the leader, but she has the factionless; she has an army. You rarely go to the meetings; this isn’t what you want. Instead you take routine patrol routes. Finally, you get to live the simple life of a Dauntless; you go to work, you eat with your comrades, you party on the weekends like nothing has changed. The world outside is mess, but you don’t think about it. You do your job and nothing more. The lost feeling doesn’t go away no matter how much you force yourself not to think about it; the question of  _ what now?  _ reverberates. 

Four and the others think the answer is simple: you must go to the Outside and find the Others. This, however, isn’t a responsibility you want, even if your mother left it for you. 

Your mark itches and burns. You know where her cell is, where her prison is. You’ve stood outside the unremarkable building many times now, but you haven’t managed to make your way inside. Eventually, you will. It’s inevitable. 

It’s Evelyn who finally goads you to enter. She keeps appearing, almost as often as you lurk outside the building, as if she too can’t decide if she actually wants to enter or not. The gun at her side doesn’t exactly fill you with hope as to what her purpose is. You like to pretend that’s why you choose that particular building to pace outside of; that yes, Jeanine is a murderer, but death isn’t true justice. 

The day is warmer than usual. Evelyn has her shirt sleeves rolled up to her elbows - you can see Jeanine’s colour on her, finally. You knew it had to be there somewhere but it’s still darker than expected. It’s only a few shades lighter than yours and is the perfect imprint of Jeanine’s left hand. You think about her right hand, the two fingers your black that devours the light - you think of Evelyn’s silver on Jeanine’s left hand, the way the sun had glinted off the colour that clings to the tips of three fingers. You always thought it looked like dust that couldn’t be wiped away.

Evelyn says something threatening; you don’t particularly listen.

“You know I’m not going to let you kill her.”

“I’m aware, yes. You’re in love with her; I recognise that particularly tortured expression.”

“From where?”

“The mirror.” She smirks, but it’s self-depreciating. “I’d warn you about getting your heart broken, but I can see it’s already happened multiple times over.”

You laugh, but it’s quiet and kind of wet. Unexpectedly, Evelyn steps closer and puts her hand on your bare forearm; that dusty silver spreads, almost as dark as Jeanine’s own. “I was just going to say we don’t have to be enemies, but apparently something out there already knows.”

You enjoy Evelyn’s dry humour; you enjoy the warmth of her hand upon your skin. “I think I’d like that. For - for us not to be enemies.”

“Good.” She smiles, drags a single finger through her colour. It leaves a warmth and a tingling behind as you climb the stairs to Jeanine’s cell.

 

The guards let you in without question; the only good thing to have come out of all this is the access your seniority gives you. Jeanine is stood staring out the window, her back to you as you enter. The dress they have given her is baggy and without shape. Her hair is tied back in an approximation of its usual style, but it’s lank and unconvincing. The lack of her usual power, so much of it wielded through the perfection of her dress, makes your chest ache. 

“It’s been 200 years. Who knows what’s out there.”

“I doubt either of us will ever find out.”

There is a pause, and then she turns, slowly. “You… Weren’t who I was expecting to see.”

“Yeah, I bumped into Evelyn outside. I don’t think she’ll be visiting you. Sorry.”

“No, that’s… That’s good, probably.” She clears her throat. There’s something awkward in her bearing, as if she doesn’t know what to do with herself, doesn’t know what to offer.

“So, what’s with you and Evelyn anyway?”

“Oh, we were - we grew up together and were… Close. Until she left for Abnegation.”

“Did you break her heart, too?” You don’t exactly mean to say it, and scrub a hand angrily over her eyes. “Of course you did. Who am I kidding.”

“Tris, it’s not - I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to then and I didn’t mean to now, I thought you understood that I had to do what I did, for the Greater Good -”

“And you were wrong! Your perfect world, your perfect idea of humanity or whatever the FUCK that was, wasn’t even true!”

“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think it eats at me, constantly? That I misread the signs; that for all my intellect I couldn’t see what was coming? The things I did Tris. The things I did.” All the fight seems to go out of her; her body sags. 

Your heart tugs at you. So much of your interactions with Jeanine are governed by your body moving before your head can make the choice; your heart choosing for you. This time, you step forward and gather her into your arms purposefully. Without her heels, she’s a couple of inches shorter than you, which shouldn’t fill you with as much satisfaction as it does. “I do understand. I do. Revolution is… It’s always hard. And it always needs a villain.”

“That’s what I was? A villain?”

“I think so.”

She’s quiet in response, and you allow her to be. It’s hard to demonise her for the mistakes she’s made, hard to turn her into the perfect opponent when that wasn’t even what she was attempting to be. The kind of battle the two of you fought wasn’t really personal, but the damage was; you still remember the deaths of your parents, the feel of the gun in your arms and Will’s face on the street. Those scars will perhaps never heal, but neither will the aching hole in your heart Jeanine unknowingly carved out for herself the very first time she touched the bare skin of your collarbone. 

It’s easier to talk, to confess, when you can’t see her face. You whisper your devotion into her the skin of her neck, the delicate shell of her ear. 

“I can’t, I won’t forget all that you’ve done but I’m not - it doesn’t - somehow my feelings are unable to ignore despite or maybe because of that, and you’re rotting in here and I’m still - I’m still in love with you. And I can still feel you, and all of this seems - it just seems like it doesn’t matter, that it’s not what’s really important even though none of this - none of this can happen because you’re stuck in here. But - Jeanine - just - I just love you. I just love you.” 

The confession makes you light. It’s not a jubilant one; there is no happy ending for the two of you. You know you don’t get to ride off into the sunset, but maybe the results don’t matter - maybe this one moment, in all of its almost perfection, is enough to heal the hole in your heart.

“I love you, too.” Jeanine’s voice is quiet, but it’s firm. You know she’s made a decision to tell the truth, to let herself be emotionally vulnerable because you need to hear it, and it makes your heart swell that little bit more. 

“But you need - you need to forget me.” There’s the Jeanine that gave up everything for her city, for the future she thought she was saving. There’s the strong and noble part of her. It’s what allows her to be manipulative and deceptive and to lie; it’s the morality that makes her ambitious and cruel. She steps back, so she can see your face. She’s strong and determined and still so beautiful. “You need to go live, to go past these walls and to become what the city needs -”

Your smiling so hard it almost hurts, nearly giggling, because it’s so predictable, and bless her but Jeanine’s getting a little bit pissed that you’re not taking her seriously until you lean down and gently kiss her. She sighs, a little puff against your lips, and you kiss her again, another soft peck. “I love you,” you murmur into her mouth. 

It’s her that deepens the kiss. It’s her that makes you forget that she’s still in prison, that the odds are against you, that the nation that hates her is the same one that treats you as a hero. She is beautiful and you love her and somehow she loves you. Those black fingertips are in your hair and against your skin and she’s pressing tiny kisses to the blue sky of your collarbones and none of the world matters in this moment. Somehow, she loves you and you love her. The rest of it can go choke; you’ll fix it in the morning. Together. 

**Author's Note:**

> me? pick soulmate colours/placement solely for the aesthetic? never !
> 
> the end of this is so sappy what am i doing who am i also i cant believe this is my longest fic by far + it's 4 divergent ,,, im the worst 
> 
> anyway i guess i have 2 write a poly jeanine/evelyn/tris fic now at some point rip
> 
> this was actually meant 2 be a name soulmarks au when i first started planning it on twitter with harriet so she drew a fuckton of suPER good shit 4 it here http://hattersarts.tumblr.com/post/147660576790/oh-boy-so-i-have-a-whole-stack-of-jeantris 
> 
> also like all credit 4 jeanine being in the room with her when tris finally cracks the box open goes 2 harriet and this post http://hattersarts.tumblr.com/post/128983848185/so-in-the-au-divergents-become-their-own-faction 
> 
> also also like tbh here's harriet's divergent tag please go through it and cry http://hattersarts.tumblr.com/tagged/divergent 
> 
> follow me on twitter if u wna scream abt divergent tho tbh https://twitter.com/merteuiI


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